"Ron Button" wrote in message
...
As there has been some comment recently about the reappearance of the
dreaded El Nino,I thought it was worth a look at the current world sea
temp charts (see below ).
Assuming it occurs around latitude 10 south,there seems to be very
little evidence of its appearance judging by todays readings.
.... Perhaps more along the equator, though signs of same should be
apparent at that latitude on the South American side.
https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/products/...sstanomaly.gif
.... I tend to look at the TOGA/ TAO data display from the array
specifically set up to monitor this region: find the main page and data
from:-
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/proj_over/proj_over.html
(also plenty of reading on what constitutes El Niņo etc.)
At the moment, I would tend to agree with you that there is no sign of a
*major* event occurring: even by the definitions found on this site, the
situation currently looks not very far from 'normal', though tending to
a 'warm' ENSO event - especially with warm 'blobs' further west in the
Pacific, which could 'slosh' back towards the east if/when the trades
fail.
The problem is that every appearance of anomalously warm waters gets
labelled as an El Niņo, and then a standard template of conditions is
invoked. I'm not sure that is right: as discussed a few days ago in
another thread, these warm ENSO events are themselves highly variable,
both in intensity, area affected, time of onset and decline (and
therefore of duration). All these variables need factoring into the
effects 'downstream', and by the time things 'happen' over here in our
bit of the world, I still hold to the view that our 'local' (i.e. North
Atlantic / continental Europe) conditions will heavily modify signals
resulting from a *weak* event. If it were to be a *strong*, long-lasting
event (e.g. late 1997 when anomalies in the equatorial east Pacific were
at least +5/+6degC), then I can believe a fairly strong link - though
again researchers differ about the 'sign' of it's effect for NW Europe.
However this turns out, it will be interesting, with this wealth of data
available, to try and see if there is an impact upon us this winter /
early spring.
Incidentally, even with this indifferent event (and of course for much
of this year so far, NO warming), global temperatures (surface) are
running well above average: if the warm ENSO event did wind up
significantly, then there could be a general lifting of temperatures,
irrespective of the synoptic patterns we end up with over the next 6
months or so.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
Martin.
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